January 12, 2006

Great Shows You Haven't Seen

Because there just doesn't seem to be enough categories over there on the right of the screen, we're adding a new one; Great Shows You Haven't Seen.

Yes, I guess it's fairly presumptuous of me to assume that the shows listed here, from time to time, are ones that you haven't seen. But, in the case of Boomtown, it's a fairly good bet seeing as how it was cancelled midway into its second year.

Premiering on NBC in 2002 it spanned two seasons, though only 24 episodes were created. The first year had 18 and only 6 in its last.

The brainchild of Graham Yost, the writer best known for his work on Band Of Brothers, From The Earth To The Moon, and the Keanu Reeves feature Speed. Boomtown follows an ensemble cast of Los Angeles police, district attorneys, paramedics and news reporters as their lives intertwine in the process of dealing with crimes in the city.

The show received a great deal of attention because of its manner of storytelling. Each episode unfolds from the veiewpoints of several members of the cast. Only at the end does the entire story come into focus, and many times the outcome is different than the viewer might have expected.

This method of telling a story from the middle to the beginning, to the end, back to the beginning has been done many times and in both television and features. But never has it been done as well as on Boomtown.

While a few people found the process confusing, I never did and the process was never used as a gimmick, but done as an effective tool of storytelling. And that tool allowed for a complex and riveting hour of television. And many critics agreed. While the show never grabbed the numbers producers had hoped, it received a number of nominations for a variety of awards.

Starring a truly amazing cast including the often overlooked Donnie Wahlberg, Neil McDonough, Mykelti Williamson, Gary Basaraba, Nina Garbiras (a wonderful talent who seems to have disappeared from the screen), Lana Parrilla, and Jason Gedrick in what I think is probably some of his best work.

It's my understanding that only the first 18 episodes are available on DVD, but I'm hoping that will change and the final season will eventually drop. If you want to watch drama, acting, and storytelling at its best, please pick up a copy of Boomtown. You won't be sorry.